Chilean former dictator Augusto Pinochet was officially put under house arrest Wednesday after the Supreme Court upheld his indictment on murder and kidnapping charges stemming from abuses during his 1973 to 1990 rule.
The formal arrest, which included a reading of charges and a signature from the accused, was delivered at Pinochet's posh ranch of Los Boldos, west of Santiago on the Pacific coast.
Pinochet, 89, has never stood trial for the disappearance and presumed murder of some 3,000 opponents who vanished during his dictatorship, according to official count.
A magistrate's secretary entered Pinochet's residence with two police and another court secretary who acted as a witness. They left 15 minutes later and did not speak to reporters.
The charges -- one murder and nine kidnappings of people whose bodies were never found -- are related to Operation Condor, a 1970s conspiracy of South American dictatorships to collaborate on eliminating leftist opponents.
Pinochet exhibited "the dignity of a soldier," when he signed the documents around noon Tuesday, according to Gustavo Collao, one of his lawyers.
"Mr. Augusto Pinochet, despite his 89 years and his publicly acknowledged ill health, participated with the dignity, respect and enthusiasm of a soldier and former president of the republic," Collao said.
The once-feared dictator suffered a mild stroke in mid-December and was briefly hospitalized, but was said to be recovering.
Since Thursday, he has been staying at his ranch in the pastoral town of Bucalemu, some 110km west of Santiago.
According to Juan Guzman Tapia, the judge handling the case, Pinochet authorized Operation Condor in November 1975 following a meeting of secret services from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay in Santiago.
Pinochet has been through this before: in 2001 the same judge put him under house arrest, also at Los Boldos, on charges relating to the "Caravan of Death," some 75 summary executions carried out after the 1973 coup.
Pinochet spent six weeks under house arrest before he was granted limited freedom under court supervision. The charges were dropped in July 2002 when the Supreme Court found that Pinochet suffered from mild dementia and was unable to stand trial.
However, the prosecution successfully argued that the former dictator has since given clear signs of being lucid: in November 2003 Pinochet showed no hint of dementia when interviewed by a Miami television station, and in August last year he gave detailed answers to another judge investigating his secret account at Riggs Bank in Washington that held up to US$15 million.
Pinochet's lawyers are now urging that the trial be halted on health grounds. The decision will be made by the Santiago Appeals Court, which will have to assess whether Pinochet is fit to stand trial.
That decision can be expected to be appealed to the Chilean Supreme Court, which would make the final ruling on Pinochet's legal fate in this case.
In statements Wednesday, the heads of Chile's army and navy were clearly uneasy with Pinochet's predicament.
The head of Chile's army, General Juan Emilio Cheyre, wondered whether Pinochet should be brought to trial due to his weak health, referring to medical reports ordered by Judge Juan Guzman Tapia.
And the head of Chile's navy, Admiral Miguel Angel Vergara, said he believes "the whole country feels some concern that a former president of the republic is in this situation."
In November, after an official report exposed cases of torture practiced during the regime, Chile's joint chiefs of the army, navy, police and air force admitted to their dictatorship-era excesses.
Previously, the armed forces had explained away human rights violations as the acts of wayward individuals.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
RSS